Star Trek:The Next Generation - AW powered

The idea of making a Star Trek game has always been close to my heart. Now that I've fallen for AW, I have to ask the question: Will a Star Trek RPG powered by AW be interesting?

Here are my first jumbled thoughts about it...New play books will be needed, but the classes are already there, ripe from the TV show (or movies, if you're young...).
Captain is a cardholder of sorts, First Officer, Engineer, Security officer....they all lend themselves almost directly to AW stereotypes.

It could be a "Planet of the Week" or "Crisis of the week"-deal, where the action corresponds to what a TNG TV show would go through. Star Trek had some great writing, and structuring frameworks will be easy.

If you have some great ideas, let me know - also post if you see some issues that will crop up. The plan is to take AW and simply change the fiction - model it on "Monster of the Week", and presto - you've got yourself a Star Trek game powered by AW.

So Trekkies, unite!

I suggest to start with the Principles and MC Moves.

I suggest to start with the Principles and MC Moves.

Yeah, I will jot down a take on the principles and MC moves. These should be pretty easy to make interesting, since the show featured so many genres, foes and developments in its 7 year run.

I am leaning towards a planet-side game, then add a starship framework afterwards.

I am seeing fronts like different cultures/races (the Romulans, the Klingons, even the Vulcans), space anomalies, pirates, the whole nine yards.

Think about the Borg. Basically, you can lift the warlord from AW, and it's right there in the AW book, no change needed: the Hive Queen. Impulse: to consume tech and flesh.

"Scarcity": Drones/Unique Technology. Method: Assimilation.

Moves:
- Assimilate. A drone assimilates a PC with nano-probes, creating a zombie-like shell of a man with no free will (See the first real ST:TNG movie)

MC Moves for the Borg:

 Outflank someone, corner someone, encircle someone.
• Attack someone suddenly, directly, and very hard.
• Attack someone cautiously, holding reserves.
• Seize someone or something, for leverage or information.
• Make a show of force.
• Make a show of discipline.
• Offer to negotiate. Demand concession or obedience.
• Claim territory: move into it, blockade it, assault it.
• Buy out someone’s allies.
• Make a careful study of someone and attack where they’re weakest.

That's a straight lift and it fits.

and lastly, just some agenda:
GM Agenda - more or less the same:
- Make the galaxy a real place. Also, a place with conflicts all over.
- Make the characters real and make their lives interesting. Shouldn't be too hard: Starfleet admirals always have gaseous anomalies that need checking out.
- Play to see what happens. The galaxy is as huge a sandbox as you get.

GM Agendas

Make the Universe seem vast
Fill their lives with exploration and discovery
Play to show what it means to be human.

GM Agendas

Make the Universe seem vast
Fill their lives with exploration and discovery
Play to show what it means to be human.

I like that, Noclue - it's been assimilated!

Perhaps nr. 3 should go like this:
Play to show what it means to be human in a high-tech world.
(that should be worded better, but I hope you get the idea)

I think this one is pretty good.

Principle: Barf forth technobabble.


Because ST:TNG had some serious babble going on. And a lot of it.

"The dilithium crystals have been drained by the extra energy you diverged to the shields. What do you do?"

Here are some more General moves. The game will have a lot of gear-related GM moves, because something always goes wrong at the exact time you really needed it.

General GM moves:
   - Cut off communications (person to person and shipwide)
   - Disable starship system (shields, engineering, etc)
   - Strand the players on a planet.
   - Make the players break the Prime Directive or suffer/inflict terrible consequneces.
   
   
The GM moves don't need changing - they only need additional moves.
If you are interested in helping, simply post in this thread or PM me.

Perhaps there should be a Principle dealing with chain of command.
"Remember your duty to Starfleet" or some such. 

Oh and of course, The Prime Directive.

GM moves

Cut them off from the rest of the crew.
Show them the limits of their technology.
Present them with a Kobayashi Maru.
Invoke Starfleet chain of command or directives.
Confront them with an alternate reality.

Great input, guys, thanks a lot.

Keep this post "notified", because I am going to post some real stuff on here soon.

What are you going to replace Weird with?

What are you going to replace Weird with?

Good question. There are many good options, depending on what elements in the game I want to emphasise.

It could be ESP (or some sort of mind reading - for betazoids like Deanna Troi and her mother, Lwaxana).
It could also be a descriptor for any superpower, for characters like Q or characters with other special abilities (mind melts, for example)

It could be a stat that describes the character's star fleet training (perhaps even with a specialty). This should be the basis of moves that rely on Starfleet training, for example beaming someone back to the ship through an ion storm (barf forth technobabble!)
There are a lot of other options, but these are the ones I can think of right now.

What do you think? What would you find more interesting?

What do you think? What would you find more interesting?

I quite like the idea of a Starfleet stat, representing rank, knowledge, power etc within the Starfleet organisation.

Quote from: wingsofwax on June 05, 2014, 04:16:03 AM

What do you think? What would you find more interesting?

I quite like the idea of a Starfleet stat, representing rank, knowledge, power etc within the Starfleet organisation.

Me too. It would have to be specific to each character.

I've just finished some fronts that I would like you to give me feedback on. All warlords and lifted directly from the AW book.

The Borg
Warlord, Hive Quee, impulse: to consume and swarm.

The Orion Syndicate
Warlord, Slaver, impulse: to own and sell people.

The Romulans
Warlord, Dictator,  impulse: to control and Dominate.

The Klingons
 Warlord, Alpha Wolf, impulse: to hunt and dominate.

The Marquis
Warlord, Prophet, Impulse: to denounce and overthrow.

Their moves are directly lifted from the book. Some new moves will also be added to cover the sci-fi moves.

I would like you all to tell me where things are going to get hairy; what I really need to work on.

Some preliminary thoughts on the GM's job.

Before each game, he must spend a few minutes coming up with a premise or an open-ended scenario. Not a story, because we play to find out what happens. I will make it easy way to construct premises and scenarios.

The GM's preparation is strictly limited to a premise, hook or scenario. There's no planning ahead beyond that. That's what the agenda dictates.

Some examples of premises. I will write some guidelines to making premises and scenarios that will add some weight to them.

- The USS Hood moves deep into Romulan territory to blow up a scrambling transmitter. The players must infiltrate the colony where the transmitter is located.

- The team is dropped off on a planet where they must assess whether or not the planet is ready for entry into the Federation. (Stakes could be used here)

If you've seen Star Trek - any of the series - you will know that the amount of inspiration is almost unlimited.

But the point is that we need to keep it improvisational.

Here's the preliminary GM principles. The game uses the AW principles and then adds these:

- Create high tech concepts and put them in the game.
- Build the conversation on the Star Trek mythology, but create something completely new that is specific to your team.
- Keep the players on missions constantly. No downtime, no safety.
- Keep the player team as allies; they don't have to be friends, but they can't be enemies.
- Get into the mindset of Star Trek.

I am looking at play books, and you can all help a lot here. I am trying to find the closest play books from AW to use as templates for the Star Trek characters.

Take a look at the list and if you feel like it, share your opinion.

The Captain is based on the Hardholder.
The First officeer is based on......
The Security officer is based on Gunlogger
The Pilot is based on
The Commander is based on the Battlebabe and ....

The Counsellor is based on the Brainer.